You’re stupid but have nice eyelashes

Alexandra Wuest

I want to drain the sky of its blueness,Siphon every liter of melancholy from the clouds

I would take an eraser to our history, prod at the smudges and the seams of oblivion. Tracing your shoulder blades, I wonder what it would be like to unravel your spine

I drop my words into your ear and hear the echo in the void that exists there

None of us remember being brand newBut we all once wereglittering flecks of snow landing on unfurled tongues

I just want to keep stitching the word ‘and’ to our storyI tell you this while you are sleepingHiding my words in our tangled sheets and your snores

We stretch our spines towards the sun in some dance of photosynthesisSome refusal of our stunted existenceAn affirmation of our coordinates on the earthLatitudes and longitudes stitching our many useless platitudesTo the skin we have long called home

You were all eyelashes and I was all false expectations

The ship was sinkingBut you weren’t even on the boat

I sew words to your handsUnsaid but heard

I scrape together all of the debrisOf my misunderstandings and misplaced hopesAnd meld them together with desire

Improbable probabilities, impossible possibilities

All etched in your bare flesh

In this stillness we have invented a silent alphabetYou are not mineAnd I was never yours

I’m sick of ‘almosts’Getting caught in my lungs

I spooned the clouds into my coffee this morningAnd yet it still tasted bitter and tangled in my throatCurdled fever dreams

In my sleep, I had fingernails for teethSo I went out and got a French manicure